A Space for Dialogue: Fresh Perspectives on the Permanent Collection from Dartmouth’s Students

Now in its seventh year,A Space for Dialogue affords Hood Museum interns the opportunity to curate a small exhibition centered on a theme with objects from the permanent collection. Working closely with museum staff, interns determine a focus, select artwork, write objects labels and a brochure, consider design elements, and deliver a public gallery talk. For the first Space for Dialogue installation of this academic year, Ben O’Donnell ’08 curated The Art of Drinking: Four Thousand Years of Celebration and Condemnation of Alcohol Use in the Western World, presenting his gallery talk on January 16, 2008. The exhibition’s overview of changing attitudes toward alcohol consumption over the course of Western history included varied objects from the Hood’s collection, ranging from a c. 2250 BCE Egyptian beer jar to eighteenth-century engravings by William Hogarth to photographs of the New York City club scene in 1978 and 1990.

The Hood Museum of Art houses one of the oldest and largest college collections in the country, with more than 65,000 objects from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and many more regions of the world.